Chess variants lichess Lose your pieces to win. Fairy-Stockfish is a chess variant engine derived from Stockfish designed for the support of fairy chess variants and easy extensibility with more games. Maia Chess is an ongoing research project aiming to make a more human-friendly, useful, and fun chess AI. Pawns could be dropped deep in the enemy position where, for example, they can fork pieces or give an uncomfortable check. In Lichess there are many different chess variants, each with it's own way of being played. Many of the people like it and find it interesting and difficult, but even from those who were really friendly toward me, I received some This is the team for other chess variants except standard. A lot of people in the variants community are excited to see the Revolutions come back, so let us all hope that these tournaments will ignite widespread interest in variants in the chess community as a whole. Load opening positions or create your own chess position on a chess board editor pychess. Variants It can play various regional, historical, and modern chess variants such as Xiangqi Janggi Shogi Makruk Crazyhouse Atomic and many more, including games with user-defined rules Feb 22, 2022 · So there you have it, that’s my breakdown of how every variant can help with standard. Standard rules of chess apply, with the difference that all captures result in an "explosion" through which the capturing piece, captured piece, and all surrounding pieces of . A special starting position is used: Rules A move is legal if and only if it is legal in standard chess for a similar position. org tournaments and more! You can also find videos about the offered variants on Youtube PyChess is a free, open-source chess server designed to play several chess variants. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer! The chess variants listed below are derived from chess by changing one or more of the many rules of the game. you can not move into Free online chess server. Learning Material Studies: Basics • Tactics • Endgames • 3v1 Endgames • Openings Intro videos: How to play antichess: Part 1, Part 2 • Rules & brief history Book: The Ultimate Guide to Antichess Puzzles: Various • Themed • Endgame • Midgame • Chess Variants This is the official team of PyChess Join the team to stay informed on https://www. I searched in lichess forum posts by googling "crazyhouse engine" and collected many names and links Secret Queen chess is one of the fun and thrilling variants ever created. The #lichess tag lists game pages on this site that are playable at Lichess. Lichess (/ ˈliː. Uses Fairy-Stockfish for chess variant analysis and play against the computer. But if you spend time on any of the barely known variants then you're wasting more time than you would playing normal chess or established variants. Antichess is an eccentric variant where you lose all your pieces or get stalemated to win. tʃɛs /, LEE-ches) [4][5] is an Internet chess server that is free and open-source, run by a non-profit organization of the same name. Jun 22, 2020 · 24 random balanced symmetrical starting positionsTotal Symmetry Chess After I presented my Fischer-Benko Chess (FBC) to many of my friends, and to people with whom I play standard Chess and Chess960 at Chess. Bughouse is a chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. " Oct 27, 2022 · The Lichess Variant Revolutions are back! With orthodox chess growing in popularity in recent years, it is about time for variants to experience their own boom. This page covers the source configuration, WASM-specific adaptations Sep 6, 2023 · 2. com host many variants for free. Horde Revolution #3 Nov 12 Apr 26, 2015 · Very well respected and popular variants indeed, but not doable due to strange movement mechanics. Apart from the above, pieces move and capture exactly as in normal chess. com? i feel like it could really help people better enjoy variants like chaturanga. Configurable for custom variants and trainable with NNUE (neural networks). They are built to connect to the live-updating PGN file produced by DGT boards but can work with other sources as well. Winning starts with what you know The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess. [5][6][7] Features include chess puzzles, computer analysis, tournaments and chess variants. thanks in advance Oct 21, 2024 · Introduction Chess is a timeless game of strategy, patience, and deep thinking. We do it for the chess! Bughouse is a chess variant played on two chessboards by four players in teams of two. com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more. Dear Chess. Broadcasts show live games as they unfold with new moves arriving in real time. Dragon chess is a chess variant created by GM Miguel Illescas. com! The first player to deliver 3 checks or mate wins. Free online chess server. Variant Communities: Join forums, Discord servers, or Reddit groups focused on chess variants. Used by many chess variant websites such as Lichess, Pychess, Lishogi, etc. S (Advanced Chess Assistance System) is an open-source chess assistant (not a chess cheat), designed to help you make better moves using a chess engine. Crazyhouse. On this site, Gothic chess is one such variant available, where the starting positions are swapped. tʃɛs /, LEE-ches) 45 is a free and open-source Internet chess server run by a non-profit organization of the same name. Popularity of Standard Chess vs Variants on Lichess January 2022 (vs June 2020) / Chess960 is now the 2nd most popular (previously 4th) variant behind antichess Update to June 2020 post: Popularity of Standard Chess vs Variants on Lichess June 2020, where r/chess960 was the 4th most popular behind r/AntiChess , r/atomicchess , r/crazyhouse . org without a doubt. g. In antichess you want to lose all of your pieces, or This variant is quite simple, but the game play it introduces is sophisticated and games can lead to very many tactical opportunities. Features include playing against other users, practicing chess puzzles, and doing engine analysis. This variant is similar to standard chess, but it has a very strong emphasis on center play. Some players only play 1/2 m or less and especially… Aug 16, 2024 · Cool Lichess Studies List CyberShredder 16 Aug 2024 358 7,399 views English (US) Chess Chess variant Lichess List of studies that I like written in markdown ;) While I do like the new chess variants, 3 checks and king of the hills, I find that I'm not playing them at all because I am simply too bored with the standard chess opening position since I am used to playing 960. I dont know how to get in a match with the variant? Theres only option for bullet,blitz,rapid and classical. Play chess with the computer, friends or random opponents. This topic acts as a suggestion for the Lichess team to implement the S-chess variant on the website. And of course, can't forget about the increase in 2020 from self-isolation. In particular, a move is legal if and only if it would have been legal in FIDE chess. Expect bugs, especially on variants. Clarifications The winning move has to be legal Chess variant websiteLiGround is a modern, cross-platform chess variant GUI for lichess variants and regional variants. The goal of each is different, but the rules of each are distinct. So when i found this site about a week ago, i said why not, lets try everything there is! It was a kind of mental challenge. Nuke your opponent's king to win. Nxg7 causes an "explosion" in which the capturing knight, captured pawn, and adjacent black rook and bishop are removed from play. Crazyhouse is a popular chess variant where captured chess pieces can be dropped back on the board as your own piece (as in Shogi). A competitive scene also exists for crazyhouse. That is growth, and validates the energy lichess invested in the variants. ), the threshold value is 65. Chess variant websiteLiGround is a modern, cross-platform chess variant GUI for lichess variants and regional variants. Many beginner games finish as helpmates-in-one due to a bad capture. btw, does an engine that can handle customized rules even exist? for example i'd really like an engine to analyze chaturanga (shatranj) matches. A chess study by Menneske Mar 3, 2025 · This would be a wonderful addition to lichess, and something not really found elsewhere (chess. Jun 16, 2020 · I'm not seeing the option to do it anywhere. Oct 21, 2024 · Introduction Chess is a timeless game of strategy, patience, and deep thinking. Precompiled versions for each OS can be downloaded from the releases. Jan 17, 2018 · Losing Chess is an old chess variant that helps you to visualize attacks and threats and to improve your control of the chessboard. They are very practical to learn and improve, just great! I was wondering: would it perhaps be possible to get some bots similar to those to play variants? Do the The bumps are presumably from the monthly/yearly shield tournaments on Lichess. At Pychess, we share the same sentiments. it includes international games like makruk and xiangqi, classic variants like grand chess and tori shogi, and original designs such as chak and mansindam. Even though May 30, 2018 · I play predominantly horde but I can see an issue with the rating systems in other variants as well. Maia is a human-like neural network chess engine. ¡Explore it! Atomic. org and chess. Among the most popular of these are Blitz and Bullet chess—formats where time is of the essence, and split-second decisions can lead to triumph or disaster. A team for useful websites and links connected to Lichess. Compatible with UCI engines, especially Fairy-Stockfish, since LiGround’s rule implementation is based on it. Oct 6, 2023 · just play the culturally established chess variants like Chinese Chess (xiangqi), Shogi, and Makruk. For example, 3-check with 960 opening, 3-check with King of Jun 1, 2022 · For the various time variants of standard chess (bullet, blitz, rapid and classical), the threshold is 75. Not only a reference for chess variants, but also a platform for online chess play for the chess and chess variant community. Broadcasts are organized in "tournaments" and "rounds. Developed by @ashtonanderson, @sidsen and @reidmcy. 1520) depicts a game of Courier chess, a popular medieval chess variant played on a 8x12 board that was played for over 600 years Magnus Carlsen playing in the 2019 FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship. If you make a legal move that puts your opponent's King into the third check, you win. I want to play variants like Crazyhouse against the computer I want to get a list of all (because they are certainly only a few existing) crazyhouse engines. Capturing is forced. Therefore, the answer to your question is that if you play enough rated games so that your RD is less than this threshold value, you will get a rank. Chess. Ready to try our new chess variant for free? Come on! Oct 7, 2024 · LiGround is a modern, cross-platform chess variant GUI for lichess variants and regional variants (Shogi, Xiangqi, Janggi, Makruk). As with other variants, you can play chess on Pychess Variants against other people or the AI. com variants are available on the mobile app. Puzzles Both websites offer puzzles, but Chess. But the two biggest platforms—Chess. Play the most interesting chess variants at lichess and always win! Play chess variants and apply your skills to different types of games. Read more about strategic concepts, tactical patterns, and openings. A chess study by mychessbook Reigning champs: @Pinni7 (ACWC), @Lmaoooooooooooooooo (Shield), Antichessmasters (Team Battle), @wemdrick (U2000). com and have no friends, but I want to test my variants; how would I do that? anybody? Fairy-Stockfish 14 Relevant source files Purpose and Scope This document describes the Fairy-Stockfish 14 engine variant included in the stockfish-web package. Lichess is ad-free and all the features are available for free, as the site is funded by donations from patrons Chess variant websiteLiGround is a modern, cross-platform chess variant GUI for lichess variants and regional variants. com doesn't have analysis, fairyground doesn't have live games or multiple analysis lines). This version was trained by learning from over 10 million Lichess games between 1500s. C. Nov 14, 2025 · Online chess ratings are more than just numbers. 145 Lichess Bundesliga victories and counting. org. Online Platforms: Websites like Lichess. Horde chess presses the issue that many might have asked, what if the normal chess army is pit against an army of only pawns I have played a considerable amount of chess in my life but never before had i tried chess variants (except 960). Free online chess server. The Chess960 bump around October is probably inspired by the World Fischer Random Championship that was held around that time. However, the visualizations still show the relative popularity between the different chess variants. Captured pieces is in a pocket. Click on create a game and then choose your variant by replacing standard in the drop-down list Lichess (/ ˈliː. org is a free/libre, open-source chess server powered by volunteers and donations. S is currently in development. Let’s explore how each platform’s rating system works, what affects your score, and why your Please try some variants! If you are not familiar with chess, then the rules are widely available on the internet, such as on Wikipedia or premier chess sites like lichess. The game starts in the standard position, with the dragons in reserve. Time controls from 1 + 0 to 15 + 5. I can’t cover them all because there are literally hundreds. Unachess -- very popular variant which actually had a feature request in lichess forum recently. com has a limit for free users on the number of puzzles per day you can do. If you make a legal move that moves your King to one of the center squares (d4, d5, e4, e5) you win. thanks in advance May 31, 2023 · A related chess variant to Crazyhouse is the so-called tandem chess, in which two teams of two compete against each other and captured chess pieces are passed on to the team partner for further use. I mean, the pieces move the same way but the games are completely different. For the sake of brevity, "chess variant" means any turn-based strategy game, derived from Chatturanga, where pieces have distinct movements, and the goal is to capture or "checkmate" the opponent's king. Lichess offers a total of eight variants, namely: Crazyhouse: A two-player game that follows the normal chess rules; however, when you capture an opponent’s piece, you can reintroduce them back into the game as your own. Lichess is ad-free and all the features are available for free, as the site is funded by donations from patrons, who receive a A chess study by MangoTownTravis The analysis board under tools can only analyze normal chess games. A chess variant is any board game related to, derived from, or The Variants World Cup is a large tournament whose purpose is to identify the best chess variants player in the world; while some people may be good at one particular variant, this tournament hopes to identify the best overall chess variants player. For more information go to maiachess. io and discord. com), there are a number of other sites where variants can be played: Pychess-variants: Based on lichess's source code and powered by Fairy-Stockfish. Welcome to The House – chess and chess variants. No registration, no ads, no plugin required. It is played on the standard 8×8 board and uses Dragon chess is a chess variant created by GM Miguel Illescas. Nov 8, 2023 · Lichess milestones How difficult can it be for someone to achieve a rating of at least 2000 in every variant and mode i… Note This is a dataset of chess games from chess tournaments tracked using Lichess Broadcasts. How quickly can a mind recognize the new patterns, adapt, and finally find the Utterly pointless to post a video where 3 check is hovering around 1500 weekly players until the last 3 seconds, when the figure reaches 3000. FR, also known as Chess960, is one of the most popular modern Chess variants. They represent your progress, your consistency, and your ability to perform against other players in the same community. For the other chess variants (atomic, chess960 etc. S GUI, and you're ready Free online chess server. Aug 23, 2021 · Astrochess: Play chess with the stars! This variant can mostly be played at the night-time under a starry sky. So what is the most popular of these chess variants? That is what we will go over in this chess forum. For everyone. The Chess Players by Lucas van Leyden (c. This selected pawns will act as queen the whole game, this will add an very enticing element of excitement as both player will be on edge the whole game neither knowing which one of the pawns is a secret queen LiGround is a modern cross-platform chess variant GUI. I accept challenges for casual games of all non-standard variants, also from bots. Chess960 (also known as Fischer Random) is a chess variant where the starting position of each piece in the home rank is randomized. Fairy-Stockfish is a chess variant engine that extends Stockfish to support non-standard chess games such as Crazyhouse, Three-Check, King of the Hill, and others. Initiative is paramount. 6 Apart from the main chess sites (lichess. Clarifications The winning move has to be legal, e. I believe there are quite a lot of players who would like to try that here. com wins if on desktop, Lichess wins if on mobile. Jun 19, 2017 · 316,072,343 chess positions evaluated with Stockfish. Atomic chess is a chess variant. Actually, the variants aren't played very much as compared to the standard games at lichess. This page covers the source configuration, WASM-specific adaptations This is the team for other chess variants except standard. There are many variants in lichess. Jul 25, 2025 · Lichess is ad-free and all the features are available for free, as the site is funded by donations from patrons, who receive a special badge as thanks for their support. Four-player chess Play 3 Check Chess online at Chess. A. Since these variants only introduce 1 rule, why not change it so that you can include any number of these variant rules. lichess. The current figure is 5200, and 9600 for crazyhouse. Although there are many other interesting variants, they have a basic chess setup with the same Black and White starting position. Chess variant websiteStrongest open source chess variant engine in many variants. The better app depends on your preferences—if you want a more community-driven and free experience, Capturing a piece leads to an explosion that affects every adjacent piece, except pawns. If you want to experiment with custom variants, Fairyground might be a good place to start. It supports Chess960, Crazyhouse, Atomic, Three-Check, AntiChess, King of the Hill, Horde, and Racing Kings. Lichess Racing Kings Team You can join the Lichess Racing Kings team for more content and community-driven events! Mar 14, 2025 · lichess is the first website you will want to visit and create an account if learning Standard Chess and variants based directly off of it. Play chess online for free on Chess. Evaluations are formatted as JSON; one position per line. A chess study by nidav000 Horde chess is unique among all the variants on lichess, namely being the only variant where both sides get a different set of pieces. gg/FYUGgmCFB4 for more info. Produced by, and for, the Lichess analysis board, running various flavours of Stockfish within user browsers. As per my experience, the 2 most popular variants are Antichess and Three-check. The rules can be grouped into categories, from the most innocuous (starting position) to the most dramatic (adding chance/randomness to the gameplay after the initial piece placement). Each team member faces one opponent of the other team. Each player plays the opponent as in a standard chess game, with the exception of the rules specified below. I think you might want to have a look at pychess, which seems to be based on lichess code but is focused on chess variants, both established and experimental ones. The Guide To Variants!: The Variant Guide 4 9 Chapters 2 Members The Variant Guide King of the Hill Three Check Antichess Atomic Chess Racing Kings Chess960 Horde Crazyhouse The biggest library for chess variants, chessvariants. They give a lot of people huge pleasure, and you choose to propagandize against the continuation of our pleasure? And that is Jun 19, 2017 · 316,072,343 chess positions evaluated with Stockfish. Wow! This is a truly amazing idea! But what if we were to combine Football Chess with Samurai Chess? A chaotic game of strategy and timing. The objective is to lose all your pieces or to get stalemated. As it is a rather new project the set of features is rather limited, but working well for basic analysis and game play. How it works is so at the start of the game each player picks one of their 8 pawns to be their secret queen. Aug 13, 2020 · Fairy-Stockfish for variants, on AMD Threadripper 3990X. In this blog, we’ll dive All of Lichess features are free for all and forever. Rules All the Laws of FIDE chess apply. Rules Pieces move the same way they do in standard chess; however, kings lose their royal powers - they cannot castle, and checks are no longer a threat. org and pychess. If a variant changes rules from multiple categories, it belongs to the sub-section below Horde chess is a variant where white has 36 pawns (which will be referred to as The Pawns ) and black (The Pieces) needs to destroy the Horde to win. org, chess. At least in those variant you might find some opponents online. Sep 14, 2023 · Although Chess. Lichess is free, open-source, and has a clean interface with various modes, while Chess. Adjacent pawns are unaffected. If multiple pieces When starting to play atomic chess, it's easy to miss all the consequences of making a capture, including which lines open up. This leads to a much different game than standard chess. We do it for the chess! The Variants World Cup is a large tournament whose purpose is to identify the best chess variants player in the world; while some people may be good at one particular variant, this tournament hopes to identify the best overall chess variants player. In this team we will not play standard games we will only play chess960,king of the hill,Three Check,racing kings,horde,atomic,crazy house,anti chess. com has a ton of variants compared to Lichess, none of the Chess. Free Online Chess VariantsLose all your pieces (or get stalemated) to win the game. Its game logic uses the Fairy-Stockfish based ffishjs library, therefore it is very well compatible with Fairy The Home Of Chess And Chess Variants Welcome to EvoChess. If you love PyChess, Learn Chess basics Practice Coordinates Study Coaches Watch Broadcasts Lichess TV Current games Streamers Video library Community Players Teams Forum Blog Tools Dec 8, 2024 · how do I do it I'm new to chess. It supports all lichess variants as well as all major regional variants (Xiangqi, Shogi, Janggi, Makruk). For those who don't know: Seirawan chess (also SHARPER chess or S-Chess), is a chess variant invented by American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan and Bruce Harper in 2007. A. Lichess Crazyhouse Team You can join the Lichess Crazyhouse team for more content and community-driven events! Lichess is a free, open-source, and ad-free chess server. If you can take a piece, you must. There is an exception for The Pawns. pychess. To play this variant, you gotta follow the steps given below- Step 1: Sit under a starry sky. Feb 24, 2025 · Both Lichess and Chess. tʃɛs /, LEE-ches) 45 is an Internet chess server that is free and open-source, run by a non-profit organization of the same name. com has an entire article dedicated to the topic of "What is a chess variant?". github. Play Fischer Random Chess (Chess960), Seirawan chess (S-Chess), Atomic Chess, Crazyhouse Chess and many more. See fairy-stockfish. It would be very helpful if it is also able to analyze other chess variants. com and Lichess—use slightly different systems to calculate those numbers. Even though traditional chess already offers a great challenge, the chess variants that deviate from it are a welcome change. com and Lichess. org, I heard many opinions on it. Please try some variants! If you are not familiar with chess, then the rules are widely available on the internet, such as on Wikipedia or premier chess sites like lichess. org and Chess. com with over 200 million members from around the world. Engines Fairy-Stockfish Strongest open source chess variant engine in many variants. Step 2: Try joining one star with the another one and slowly form a chess board in it. There are several variants that have different starting positions. In 2010, Thibault Duplessis began work on Lichess as a hobby project. That a new variant hasm't been added to lichess in so long that it would require a huge overhaul in the code and break all kinds of systems if 2 presents as a problem, it seems like implementing spell chess on lichess might be a great idea to resolve some lasting code debt issues and clean up old problems. These can be played by setting the "alternate start" in any new game dialog. One player per team has black pieces, while the other has white pieces. Discover the rules of this easy chess variant. However, the pieces of both sides will still be symmetrical. You can also play @maia1 and @maia9. At any time, you can use your move to place the dragon on a free square in your first rank. Antichess. Just install the userscript, open the A. However, over the years, many exciting and fast-paced chess variants have emerged, offering players new ways to enjoy the game. A capture in atomic chess. Being a variant player is probably how I’ve improved from 800-900 blitz to 1800 blitz, clearly a sign that variants help, along with playing a lottttt. Play chess in a clean interface. it is similar to lichess, but focused on variants. com. Users of the site can play online chess anonymously and optionally register an account to play games to earn a rating on Lichess. Challenge others online in a game of Bughouse, 4-Player Chess, Duck Chess, and more. Jan 25, 2023 · Hi, Is there any way to get an analysis for Horde? I played a ton of games but it's frustrating because I am guessing what to do half the time. com have their strengths. possibly doable now is a bit of a stretch, though I suppose you could do it with a shared board editor or something of the sort. The only way to win is via checkmate. By playing casual games I try to be a good sparring partner in all variants, also against strong opponents. The Pieces win by capturing all the Pawns. I would like to be able to improve. Since kings have lost their royal powers, pawns may be promoted to kings. Of the variants, racing kings (14), atomic (16), and three-check (18) have the lowest average moves per game due to the nature of these variants, while in horde (46) the average is significantly higher than for standard chess games. Mar 14, 2021 · will engine analysis ever be available for variants on chess. Step 3: Try forming chess pieces. A chess study by Nidhi1234alok A chess study by ISaveChesspapers Jun 20, 2025 · I'm still a beginner and would love to learn how to play them better and understand the basics, like: * What are the main strategies or ideas in each variant? * How do openings work in variants (if they even matter)? * Are there YouTube videos or beginner guides that explain them clearly? * Any Lichess studies or puzzles that are good for learning? Free Online Chess Variants Jan 25, 2023 · The link here goes directly to their chess variants page; users there can play a handful of popular variants. Mar 9, 2025 · As if learning standard Chess wasn’t enough fun, there are historical and modern variants of Chess. Sep 26, 2023 · What are the most popular chess variants at lichess ? How do they rank? Oct 15, 2025 · Fairy Stockfish Chess variant engine by @ubdip, playing all variants, using dedicated variant NNUE networks for each variant. com development team, I love the newly added bots for playing live games: those characters with different levels and play styles. com offers extensive lessons, tutorials, and a larger player base. Free Online Chess VariantsLike Lichess, we believe every player deserves the best. This includes pieces promoted from the Chess variant websiteLiGround is a modern, cross-platform chess variant GUI for lichess variants and regional variants. Users can play anonymously, or create a free account to make use of all the site's features. Lichess is ad-free and all the features are available for free, as the site is funded by donations from patrons, who Chess Variant Servers Lichess Open source chess server Biggest open source chess server, also supporting a few chess variants. Jan 11, 2022 · Variants are games that are similar to chess, and in most cases follow chess rules. Chess960: This variant aims to reduce the number of Open Source Chess Variant EngineFairy-Stockfish is used on many chess variant websites, most notably on lichess. What I can do is tell you about some… Free online chess server.